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Indiana purges nearly 500,000 from voter rolls

Indiana has purged nearly a half-million registered voters from its rolls since Election Day.

The purge is part of a massive effort to update the state's voter rolls after years of improper maintenance and neglect, Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson said. Since the November elections, 481,235 registered voters have been taken off the list.

“When I became secretary of state, I discovered voter list maintenance was not being done statewide and many outdated voter registrations were still on the rolls,” Lawson said in a statement.

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"Updating these records will help us create a more accurate picture of voter turnout for the state, which has been reported as inaccurately low due to the large number of outdated registrations, while protecting the integrity of our elections.”

States are required by federal law to update and correct their voter rolls. But in Indiana, that process was handled almost exclusively at the county level, leaving the task, in some cases, to county offices without the funding or resources to manage the lists.

Lawson began the process of cleaning up the voter rolls in 2014, when her office sent a postcard to every registered voter in Indiana. If postcards were returned as undeliverable, Lawson's office would send a second, forwardable postcard.

Those who did not update their voter records after receiving the second card were marked as inactive on the state's list of registered voters. Voters who didn't cast ballots in 2014, 2015 or 2016 were then purged from the rolls after the November contest.